MENTAL CONTROL OF THE MUSCLES 205 



communicate the full amount of their energy to the 

 hand. 



In everything we do, with the thumb or forefinger or 

 with both, at the moment of doing it we subconsciously 

 also control the wrist. But writers on the subject of fly- 

 casting have insisted on wrist action a " delicate wrist 

 action" being, according to them, the necessary adjunct to 

 casting with a single-handed rod. By thus directing the 

 attention of the learner to the wrist, and not to the forearm 

 and thumb, they have not assisted those who have depended 

 on their advice, and have actually sinned against the methods 

 they themselves employ in nine cases out of ten when they 

 are successfully casting a fly. So far as this advice is 

 concerned, the mistake is generally due to a faulty analysis 

 of the habits on which they depend. The movement of the 

 wrist, if made at all, is purely a secondary and unnecessary 

 action depending on a separate and mentally controlled 

 muscular activity, and if the wrist is used as a hinge, it is 

 moved as the result of thought applied with this definite 

 object in view. 



MISPLACED ATTENTION 



The author, when teaching a lady to cast a trout fly, 

 endeavoured to get her to raise her hand upward and 

 toward her face without bending her wrist (a stiff wrist 

 being necessary for the successful accomplishment of the 

 cast). When casting she had been always accustomed to 

 bend her wrist, and when endeavouring to follow the author's 

 instructions, she was absolutely unable to raise her hand 

 from the horizontal position to her face. The action should 

 have been performed from the elbow, but, taking her mind 

 from her wrist, she concentrated it on her shoulder, and thus 

 failed. The author then said : " Oh, never mind if you 

 cannot do it, we will find some other way to make you do 



